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Vancouver Postgame

By: Adam Jardy

The Columbus Dispatch - April 29, 2012 07:19 AM

How do you make sense of a game that left its participants searching for answers themselves?

Even a soccer neophyte could tell that the Crew held the edge for nearly the entire match
against Vancouver, and yet the Whitecaps leave Columbus with three points after posting their sixth
shutout of the season. The conversation on Twitter has predominately placed the blame for this one
squarely at the feet of head coach Robert Warzycha, but from my seat I can’t imagine what else the
coach could have done to earn the Crew the win in this one.

It is obvious that this is the best lineup he can field right now, and the team’s overall
improved play in the last two games speaks to that. However, the combined one point the Crew has to
show for it suggests that all is clearly not well at Crew Stadium.

Here are some of the stats from the 1-0 loss:

-Crew leads in possession, 62.8 percent to 42.4. In the second half, that margin was 69.3 to
30.7.
-Crew has 14 attempts on goal to Vancouver’s nine and nine corners to the Whitecaps’ two.
-Crew has 79.0 percent accuracy on 501 passes compared to 68.1 percent on 295 for
Vancouver.

And yet the Whitecaps are able to score while the Crew wastes chance after chance. Even
Vancouver head coach Martin Rennie (not Hans Backe, as the game program indicates) basically
admitted that his opponent deserved to win.

“We played a good game and scored a couple goals but we gave up a bad goal and that was the
game,” Crew head coach Robert Warzycha said. “I think for the most part we did what we wanted to
do. We possessed the ball pretty well. The final pass maybe wasn’t there but offensively we were
getting the chances in spots that we wanted. If Josh (Williams) scores that, it’s probably the best
goal of the season. We created enough chances to win the game.”

Simply put, someone needs to start finishing scoring chances.

It sounds like there were no rah-rah speeches after this one or exhortations to keep heads held
high. Silence seemed to permeate the locker room.

“We were on them from the beginning,” captain Chad Marshall said. “I think we were obviously the
better team. I know it’s tough to win on the road in this league so they sat back and they’ve got a
good defense but I thought we were the better team. I don’t know, man. It’s just frustrating. We
can’t seem to score goals, and when we do they don’t count and then we give up super soft goals.”&
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Added Williams: “I think we’re stunned. We come out and play the best game of the year and the
ball just doesn’t bounce our way. I don’t know if it’s the soccer gods or what’s going on. I feel
we played a good brand of soccer, we just didn’t get the bounces.

“That’s why I think there’s silence. The game ball should be passed around and we should be
celebrating. Andy’s a good goalie. The guy hits a 40-yard ball that goes upper 90. Not much you can
do about that. I don’t know what’s going on. I think everyone is stunned.”

Gruenebaum’s Health – When I talked to Andy Gruenebaum after Friday’s practice,
the goalkeeper was visibly pale as he attempted to shake off the effects of a virus that has
affected at least four members of the roster. Today, Gruenebaum said he nearly scratched himself
from the lineup when he woke up.

“Yesterday was tough and waking up this morning, I’ve done a lot of sleeping over the last four
days,” he said. “My energy level has been pretty low but I felt well enough to play. Hopefully I
continue to get better.”

Gruenebaum said the sickness had no effect on his play although he said he started to “lose it”
toward the end of the first half.

“It’s one of those things that when you’re warming up before the game the adrenaline starts to
set in,” he said. “You feel like, ‘OK, I think I can push through.’ There was a time this morning
when I woke up I had to talk myself into waking up and getting after it today. As the game
approached I started to feel a little bit better. I took in a lot of fluids and carbs and tried to
get my energy level as high as possible. I was on the field and it’s my responsibility for
everything that goes down.”

Schoenfeld Injury – Warzycha said Schoenfeld came off in the 57th minute after
suffering an injury to his right Achilles tendon after being kicked there during the first 10
minutes of the match. His prognosis is unknown.

“Schoenfeld was good and (Olman) Vargas was OK,” Warzycha said of his forwards’ offensive
performances. “We created some chances and we were very, very close to scoring.”